AGUIRRE SOTO, HECTOR ALAN

Alan obtained an Academic Excellence Scholarship to study the International Baccalaureate (IB) at Tecnológico de Monterrey (2004). He then graduated (2009) with honors in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Industrial Engineering at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, thanks to an Academic Merit Scholarship. He graduated that same year (2009) from the University of Reutlingen, Germany, with a degree in Applied Chemistry, with a thesis on chemometrics for optimizing an emulsion polymerization reactor under the supervision of Prof. Waltraud Kessler. Alan did an REU in Prof. Chris Bowman's group at CU Boulder. Alan e won the AIChE poster session in Materials Science and Engineering (2007) and became the founding president of the 1st student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE) in Latin America, the 2nd outside the United States (2008).

He completed his Master of Science (2011) and his PhD (2014) in Philosophy in Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder under the supervision of Prof. Jeffrey Stansbury in the Bowman/Stansbury group. Afterward, he was hired by Professor Hadley Sikes to do a postdoc in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During that time, Alan obtained teaching certification from the Kaufman Teaching Program at MIT, the Science Track certificate from Wolfram Research, and participated in the Program in Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM) at MIT. Professor Irene Kochevar of Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) invited him to do a research stay at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine in 2017.

In 2017, Alan began as a full-time teaching professor at Tec de Monterrey from 2017 to 2018. In 2018, he became a research professor and founded the “Macromolecular and Photo-Sciences (MPS) Research Group”, of which he is Principal Investigator. Currently, he is a full-time research professor affiliated with the School of Engineering and Sciences, teaching courses in the Department of Sciences and the Chemical Engineering Program, and is part of the Nano-devices Focus Group, within the Nanotechnology faculty.

Alan served as director of the admissions committee from 2019 to 2022, and since January 2023, he has been the Chair of the Graduate Programs in Nanotechnology. Alan has given invited lectures internationally. He has authored more than 30 scientific papers in areas of photochemistry and macromolecular chemistry. He has 930 citations, an h-index of 13, and collaborations with the University of Twente, HUST, MIT, the University of Calgary, UNAM, and BUAP.

Alan was named one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review LATAM in 2020. Honorable mention for the Program in Polymers and Soft Materials at MIT. MISTI scholarship to improve the MX-U.S. scientific collaborations. CONACYT scholarship for postdoctoral studies. An NSF/IUCRC Grant and Recognition Award for PhD work. A “Highlight” from the Center for Undergraduate Education for student mentoring. An AIChE travel grant and 1st place in a research poster session on materials. A CONACYT PhD scholarship, a DAAD scholarship, and the Commitment to Chemical Engineering Award.

Students from the MPS research group are working at companies such as Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Grupo Alpek, as well as pursuing academic careers at universities such as MIT, Harvard, and UT Austin. Alan started a company to promote the materialization of the impact of the MPS Research Group's advances. In 2025, Alan became a member of the Mexican Academy of Science.